Define Importance
by anxious.soul
Summary: What happens when your teammates don't particularly care and you don't think you're important enough? Well...you don't get out of the painful situation you've landed in. At least, that's what Tony thinks until his favourite green giant and thunder God come along to help him... (Inspired by a prompt).


**Inspired by prompt from tumblr user tonystarkismyprompt :**

 **'"Hey guys, can I get some help over here?"  
** **"Unless it's extremely importance, Iron Man, you might have to wait a bit. Everyone is busy at the moment."  
** **"Yeah, okay, it's all cool. Don't worry about it."**

 **Except it's not.**

 **(Or Tony is severely injured and trapped while in the middle of a battle but plays his injury down because everybody is busy with their own fight and he doesn't think he's important enough for them to risk coming to save him.)'**

 **Warnings: Broken bones, Metal straight through the body, and Steve and Clint are a-holes to begin with.**

 **Disclaimer: It should be obvious that I don't own Marvel or the Avengers and personally, it's a bit silly that I have to mention this...**

 **Crossposted on my AO3, which is anxious_soul**

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"Hey, guys…can I get some help over here?"

"Unless it's extremely important, Iron Man, you might have to wait a bit. Everyone is busy at the moment." Came the Captain's authoritative voice,

"…Yeah, okay, it's all cool. Don't worry about it." Had anyone actually cared to listen…or just cared that Tony never asks for help, they'd have easily picked up the pained hitch in his voice. "No problem over here. I can deal with it. Carry on, Cap." He rambled.

 **—LINE BREAK—**

"J…what's the…diagnosis?" Tony whispered in pain,

"Sir, it appears that your right leg is trapped under several layers of the concrete from the building. It is most definitely broken. You also appear to have a piece of metal scaffolding through the right side of your torso-" Tony cut the AI off before he could continue,

"Oh…how long till I bleed out?"

"The metal is stopping your blood from flowing out of your body, sir. As long as it is not dislodged or removed, you're survival is high. However, if I may, you should insist that someone come to assist you."

"Nah…it's fine… what're their locations?" Tony slurred slightly as he clenched his eyes closed,

"Black Widow is five minutes North of your position. The Captain is on the other side of the collapsed building. Hawkeye is on the roof of a building directly beside the Captain. Thor is currently heading your way from your left and via the air. The Hulk is also headed this way but from your right instead."

"Ok…ok…they…alright?"

"Aside from minor injuries? Yes." JARVIS answered and Tony was in too much agony to pick up on his icy tone. Tony was quiet as he focused on his breathing. He couldn't believe how badly he'd miscalculated the time it would take for him to get out of the way of the collapsing building. A shuttered breath escaped him and he zoned back in when the Captain's voice came bellowing through the comm.

"Iron Man. Help Black Widow."

"Can't…bit busy, Cap." He groaned out through gritted teeth,

"Stark! I don't care what you're doing help Black Widow now!"

"And I said I bloody well can't." He shouted with a pained gasp,

"I've got her, Captain," Clint exclaimed causing Steve to release a relieved breath,

"Good job, Hawkeye. Iron Man, I can't believe how foolish you're being."

"Oh, so when everyone else was too busy to help me, that was alright. But when I'm too busy to help, I get shouted at? Thanks for the equality." He muttered sarcastically before muting his comm.

 **—LINE BREAK—**

Thor and the Hulk met in the middle. In their peripheral vision, they spied a flash of red and gold metal. Turning in unison they rushed over.

"Tin Man hurt."

"Friend Tony, please remove your faceplate." Thor murmured as he crouched down, trusting the large green giant to cover him from any of the remaining enemies should he need to. The metal faceplate slowly moved away and Thor winced at the bloodied face of his comrade. "Captain, how many more enemies are there?" The God murmured into the comm,

"Not too much. Should be finished up soon."

"I see. How long till SHIELD arrives?"

"ETA seven minutes and twenty-three seconds." Natasha answered, "Why are you asking Thor?"

"Because we need medical as soon as possible."

"Are you alright, Thor? No one saw you get hurt."

"'tis not I, Captain-"

"If you're not hurt then surely the Hulk can't be wounded," Clint muttered,

"You all appear to be forgetting about one of our teammates."

"Stark? The dicks probably fine. If he's complaining about a scratch to his face or something then he deserves it, especially after he let Nat get a sprained leg." Clint growled,

"…or maybe he has a large piece of metal through his body along with a leg trapped beneath layers of concrete." Thunder roared in the background as Thor spoke, surprisingly the anger laced in his voice was far more noticeable than the rumbling of thunder. It was obvious that Thor was maddened by the blatant disrespect aimed at the injured and barely conscious man.

"Hulk sad. Tinman cry." Hulk murmured in a shockingly quiet voice and Thor's attention immediately snapped back to his injured friends face. With the blood dripping down his pale complexion, he resembled the ghost of a murder victim. Tears silently cascaded down his face, his honey eyes fluttering shut every few seconds before opening slowly, the action repeated. It seemed that Tony wanted to lose consciousness but was fighting against it at the same time.

"Stay awake, Tony."

"Tinman wake." Grumbled Hulk.

 **—LINE BREAK—**

The next few days were spent in a hospital room. A nice one, of course, Heaven forbid a Stark be in a normal room. Said man had been in and out of consciousness for the past few days, though he was drugged up on painkillers, he was still rather talkative, but everyone suspected he had no clue what he was speaking about. The team had also taken up residence in the room. Some of them felt terrible about what had happened (read as Clint and Steve).

"Tony, why didn't you ask for help?" Steve muttered when the man woke up for longer than two minutes,

"I did." He slurred eyeing the man with glassy eyes and Steve sighed, realising that the man had in fact asked for help, which should've told the others just how bad the situation was…though Thor had actually realised, which was why he had made his way over to the area the man was in. It was just coincidence that the Hulk went over too.

"You should've said you were injured, Tony. You could've died had no one realised."

"You said… unless i's importan'…this…wasn' impo…rtan'" His words were slow and slurred as his eyes drifted shut once more and his breathing evened out as sleep claimed him. Fortunate for him, he missed all the sad looks aimed his way.

 **—LINE BREAK—**

"Tony. Next time you're injured. It's important you tell us." Natasha whispered gently into his ear as she pushed his wheelchair into the common living room where the others were waiting. With his broken leg and stitched-up side, he was confined to a wheelchair as crutches would stretch his stitches.

"Define importance," Tony said with a smirk that Natasha returned with a shake of her head,

"We're so sorry, Tony." Steve said as the pair entered, "You're important to us and we shouldn't have been so cruel.""

"Really. We're both sorry. We were the ones out of line." Clint continued, Tony just nodded at them and gave them a gentle smile.

"Well, since I'm injured and you were so so cruel to me, you can make it up by getting me some coffee, pizza -wait no I want a cheeseburger." Amusingly enough Steve and Clint both rushed about to get the demanded things causing Thor, Bruce, Natasha and Tony to laugh, though the injured man stopped almost instantly as it hurt to laugh and instead a large grin stretched over his face.

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 **Anyway,**  
 **Thank you for reading,**  
 **Hope you enjoyed this,**  
 **Please review,**  
 **No hate -don't like, don't read**

 **Bye~**


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